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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

STUDENTS AT CHARTERS START OFF HIGHER ACADEMICALLY, BUT SOME ALSO LEARN FASTER, STUDY FINDS

Charter students in middle schools also stand out academically
after they enroll in charters, making faster gains than similar students in
traditional schools, according to the study.

The findings add more fuel to the debate over charters
but stops well short of settling the question of whether these schools are more
effective at educating students.

Charter school performance has come under scrutiny
recently as a group of advocates and donors, spearheaded by the Eli and Edythe
Broad Foundation, developed a proposal to enroll half of L.A. Unified School
District students in charters. The plan, if pursued, could threaten the
solvency of the school system, some district officials say.

These advocates insisted, in a draft proposal obtained by
The Times, that charter schools are successful and that L.A. Unified is
failing.

Charters are attracting increasing numbers of families —
about 16% of district enrollment — and L.A. Unified has the most charter
students — about 100,000 — of any district in the nation.

These schools are publicly funded and exempt from some
rules that govern other campuses. Most are non-union.

Charter supporters have cited other research using Los
Angeles data to assert that these schools provide a better education. But if
students already are academically superior when they enter, that claim is
undermined. The research also raises the question of whether some charter
operators are trying to enroll higher-achieving students or trying to exclude
those less likely to perform well.

“We are not suggesting that charter schools unfairly
cherry-pick stronger students or more resourceful families,” said study
co-author Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC
Berkeley. “However, parents with more savvy or time seem more likely to seek
out stronger schools.”

Under state law, charters must accept all students, and
they must conduct a random lottery when there are more applicants than
capacity. There have been charters that have skirted these rules, although
other charters have taken steps to increase the number of low-income, minority
students who get in, and those students typically have lower test scores.

Because Fuller’s study relied on test scores, it was
limited to those grades in which students are tested.

The California Charter Schools Assn. noted that Fuller
concluded that second-graders in charters started off higher academically by
looking at their test scores in second grade, the earliest year available for
test scores. The group said that these higher test scores could be a result of
charters offering a superior education in kindergarten and first grade — and
not because the charter students started off as higher achieving.

The researchers tried to account for this issue, however,
by looking separately at students who switched from traditional schools to
charters after second grade.

The charter group also challenged the sample size in portions
of the study, among other things.

“It is unfortunate that Dr. Fuller and his team seem
unwilling to acknowledge that the credit for charter schools’ superior
performance goes to the highly talented and driven educators who, with a
healthy balance of autonomy and oversight, have innovated and adapted to their
unique communities’ and students’ needs, yielding student gains that should be
celebrated, not snubbed,” the association said in a statement.

The charter association also criticized Fuller for
including so-called affiliated charters, which are district-run and lack the
independence and operating structure of charters that are fully independent.
Fuller countered that the overall findings were unchanged when he removed the
district-run campuses.

District officials say that the better comparison is
between charters and magnet schools that offer specific programs for students
who voluntarily enroll.

The UC Berkeley study tracked 66,000 students from 2007
through 2011, using state test data and information about students provided by
the California Department of Education and L.A. Unified. Fuller’s co-authors
were Hyo Jeong Shin and Luke Dauter. The study was funded by the Spencer
Foundation of Chicago and the PACE center, based at Stanford University.

Charter supporters have defended their efforts by noting
that their students are comparable with those in district schools in terms of
family income level. Moreover, other researchers have concluded that L.A.
charter schools with similar students score higher than nearby district schools
in direct comparisons. But Fuller’s study suggests that there are subtle but
important differences between charter students and those in traditional
campuses.

Charter critics also have asserted that there are less
subtle distinctions, accusing some charters of limiting the number of students
with moderate to severe disabilities or those who have behavioral issues.

“The main takeaway of the new study is that it shows that
many charter schools are in fact selecting higher-performing students and
excluding lower-performing students,” said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of
United Teachers Los Angeles, which has criticized charters. “Whether it is
intentional in-your-face exclusion or excluding because that’s how the process
works — either way they’re not serving a proportionate share of
lower-performing students and that’s not good for a public education system.”

School board President Steve Zimmer said the results of
the research weren't “earth-shattering” for either side of the debate.

“When you’re talking about the same kids in the same
situations, we’re not talking about huge breakthroughs for charters,” said
Zimmer, who has supported most petitions to open or renew charters but also has
criticized the rapid growth of charters as harmful to the school system.

He added it would be important to learn why charters
appear to benefit middle school students.

“The data doesn’t indicate what charter middle schools
are doing better, but it does give us some suggestion that there might be some
effective approaches,” Zimmer said.

CAVEAT: The Times receives funding for its digital
initiative, Education Matters, from the California Endowment, the Wasserman
Foundation and the Baxter Family Foundation. The California Community
Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles administer grants from the
Broad Foundation to support this effort. Under terms of the grants, The Times
retains complete control over editorial content.